Blessings in Disguise - The Blessing of a Grieving Heart

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

Matthew 5:4

“Blessed are those who mourn?”  Is Jesus serious?  Most of us don’t think of grief as a blessing.  I knew a young wife who struggled with terrible grief for two years after her husband was killed by a drunk driver.  I have known elderly people who could never recover from their husband or wife’s passing… grieved so hard that not even a year later they were gone too.  I know in my own life, the pain of losing my sister, my dad, my mom – was some of the worst pains I have experienced in life.   How in the world can Jesus say that those who grieve and mourn are blessed? If this is a blessing, than it really must be a blessing in disguise.

Yet Jesus would have us to understand that grief and mourning goes with being a believer.  Think of what things about you, about your life, about this world that bring you grief.  I am willing to bet you that many of the things over which you grieve are because you are a follower of Jesus.  Are there things about your life that you have thought or said or done that grieve you?  That’s called contrition and repentance – feeling sorrow or regret over your sin.  Are there things going on in the lives of those around you that grieve you?   I talked Sunday about the husband who came to me so upset, so grieved because his wife had cancer and was dying.  I have encountered many parents whose grown children have left the faith or don’t go to church – grieving out of concern for their children.  Are there things going on in the world that grieve – the harsh things people are saying to and about one another because of politics?  Every new terrorist attack?  If you are a believer in Jesus – then as you see what sin has done in your life… the lives of others… in this world you will grieve.  You will mourn. 

But how is that a blessing?  Listen again to this week’s beatitude.  “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”  The key lies in the tense of the verbs.  Jesus, first says, “Blessed ARE those who mourn…” There is the present tense.  Followers of Jesus,. Believers who mourn and grieve over sin are blessed in the present, right now, today.  How can that be?  Jesus gives the reason in the future tense.  “for they WILL be comforted.”    I have told you before, as believers we live in the time of the “already but not yet.”  We are already saved but we are not yet in heaven.  We are already forgiven but we are not yet perfect.  We are already God’s children but we are not yet living in the Father’s house.  God has already called us and named us as heirs of His kingdom but that inheritance has not yet been fully distributed.  That day is still to come- the day Jesus promised when he will take us to be with Him forever… the day when Jesus will say to us “Come you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you…”  the day when as Jesus promises “God will wipe ever tear from our eyes and death shall be no more, neither shall there be any mourning nor crying, nor pain…”  the day will come “when God will make all things new.

There is no doubt!  We know this to be true.  We know that day will come, because another day has already come… the day when “in the fullness of time God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who are under the law, that we might receive thee adoption as sons…”  the day came when “Jesus was delivered over to death for our sins and raised to life for our justification…”  The day has already come in your life and mine “when God sent for the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who cries out “Abba Father.”   Because of what God did on those days you and I, even with all that grieves us, are right now “no longer a slave but a son and if son, then an heir through God.”

That’s the comfort and hope of our faith in God.  Yes we grieve and we mourn but not like the rest of the world that has no hope.  In our grief we have hope for, as Paul wrote, “we believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.”    So it is that parents grieving what’s happening to their adult kids, are comforted because God loves their kids even more than they do.  So it was that on the day of my father’s death I cried tears of pain because I missed him and tears of joy because in Christ I knew I would see him again.  So it is that even as we grieve our own sin, we do so knowing that because of Jesus “though our sins are like scarlet they shall be as white as snow, though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”  Of all the Beatitudes this one really is a blessing in disguise – “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”  Amen.